As we prepare for another presidential election, there’s no doubt that you will see multiple PSA’s suggesting that everyone should get out there and vote! Many will claim that it is an outrage that less than 60% of the voting age population goes to the polls in a presidential election year.
Baloney.
I would feel a lot more comfortable if the percentage were down around 10% and here’s why.
The average American is intellectually lazy when it comes to politics.
Their voting decisions are based almost entirely on emotional perceptions. Worse, those emotional perceptions are based on sound bites, commercials and 90 second profiles on the evening news.
For example, I was having a conversation with a friend of mind the other day about who he was going to vote for in 2012. He is extremely sharp, very successful and thoughtful. He told me that he couldn’t vote for any of the Republican candidates. When I asked why he stated that his opinion was formed by watching the debates.
The debates!
The debates are the last place anyone should go to learn about a candidate. Every candidate is forced to state their opinions in 30 second blurbs that they know will get replayed a thousand times on You Tube or the nightly news. As a result, instead of having a meaningful conversation about any topic they repeat a campaign theme they hope the average voter will pay attention to when surfing the internet or flipping through channels.
So, unless you are going to really begin researching the candidates and their opinions, I recommend you stay home in November.
Tags: Democrats, political debates, politics, presidential elections, Republicans, voting, voting age population, voting decisions, you tube